Vol. 11, Special Issue 11 (2022)

Background: Cheese is one of the most popular manufactured dairy product. Cheese has been a part of well-balanced diet all over the world. Quarg is milky white in colour, may be even faintly yellowish, body and texture are homogeneously soft, smooth, good spreadable and it is essentially milk protein paste. Quarg cheese appeals to palate of Indian people who don’t like the typical sharp flavour of other varieties of cheeses.

Method: Flavouring food is one of the most common uses for Herbs; almost each herbs is related to a specific flavour. Ashwagandha, turmeric, betel vine and tulsi are most common herbs traditionally used in Indian culinary dishes particularly spread. They also have both antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. Keeping this fact in view attempts would have been made to explore the flavour and antimicrobial effect of herbs in quarg type cheese. Initially, work was carried out to select the levels of four herbs (ashwagandha, turmeric, betel vine and tulsi) for the preparation of quarg type cheese and tried in preliminary study. After the selection of levels of herbs, the physico- chemical attributes determined were fat, protein, lactose, ash, total solids, acidity, pH and free fatty acid of quarg type cheese. The microbial quality of herbal quarg type cheese was studied in respect of SPC, YMC and Coliform count.

Results: The chemical composition of quarg type cheese prepared by using 0.3% Turmeric and 1.1% ashwagandha contains 11.31 and 11.15% fat, 13.01 and12.94% protein, 2.05 and 2.08% lactose, 27.43 and 27.27% total solid, 1.05 and 1.09% ash, 0.68 and 0.69% acidity (% LA), 4.72 and 4.71 pH and the quarg type cheese prepared with addition of 0.3% turmeric and 1.1 percent tulsi had microbial count of fresh cheese for SPC 1.21 and 1.31 log cfu/gm. The yeast and mould count and coliform count was nil for all samples of herbal quarg type cheese.